


Marzenya's Book of Clerics

by ellida



Category: Something Dark and Holy Series - Emily A. Duncan
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Experimental Style, Gen, Minor Character Death, POV First Person, POV Marzenya, POV Second Person, Yuletide Treat, mortals wrestle with divinity and the divine wrestles back
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:01:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28275768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellida/pseuds/ellida
Summary: Vasiliev famously chronicled the lives of saints. But Marzenya keeps a record of her own.
Relationships: Marzenya & Nadezhda Lapteva
Comments: 6
Kudos: 4
Collections: Yuletide Madness 2020





	Marzenya's Book of Clerics

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Assimbya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Assimbya/gifts).



> I was completely struck by your prompt about Marzenya’s perspective and history, and I couldn't get this idea out of my head. Happy Yuletide!

Many call to me, their souls reaching across the divide, questing and yearning for me. Few can hear me in their turn. Like calls to like, they say, and it’s true. A wise precaution. What good a kestrel that will not heed her falconer?

Who are they, these fleeting mortal birds whose minds touch mine?

Girls, always. Fierce. Headstrong. Ambitious. Often—but not always—cruel. (If not, they’ll learn. They always do. Winter and magic and death are ruthless. We will strip you to the bone, if you let us.) Brilliant. Insatiable. Gifted. Young, always so young, even by mortal reckoning.

Girls like I was. Once. No longer.

  


* * *

  


**  
Serafima Zyomina**

****You were Marzenya reborn, my darling—mortal, yes, but with cruelty and curiosity that could match my own. The savor of death intoxicated you too. You delighted in novelty, and it pleased me to invent new spells for you, to hear your laugh peal out over the battlefields, high and clear, a counterpoint to the screams you left in your wake.

The war was young then, the blood heresy still new, our hopes still high. But you—you made it easy to hope. With such an avatar, how could I fail?

I still don’t know.

  


* * *

  


**Violetta Zhestakova**

****My general. Even as a child, greatness shone out of you. You always had steel in your soul, but it was I who made you a sword and honed your edges to viciousness.

At thirteen, you rallied a nation’s forces and safeguarded the heart of her people (and her gods). You were a battle cry, you were a flashing sword, you were ruthlessness itself.

Fell and terrible, we pursued the Tranavian heretics, and they cowered. We drove them out, and out, and out, and none could stand against us.

Until one did. You fell, no longer deadly but dead, and their corrupted army poured in, and in, and in.

  


* * *

  


**Milyena Shishova**

****My mistake, dear one. You didn’t have the stomach for me, in the end. Better this way.

  


* * *

  


**Valentina Benediktova**

****Ah, my Valenka. Twelve years old and raining down my vengeance with righteous fury, driving the abominations from our city. You were unflinching and unfaltering even then.

My fighter, my daredevil, my rebel. _Let us bring the fight to them, my goddess_ , you said, and oh, how we did. Together, we redeemed the mages’ unholy bloodshed with the blessed letting of their blood with your sacramental knife.

Together, we were unstoppable. Together, a final victory over the Tranavian heresy seemed all but assured.

Until Urszula. 

You chased her through forest and blizzard, through the burning ruins and crying Kalyazi children she left in her wake, until her trail fetched up at the Tranavian border.

I urged caution. Wait, my child, lure her out, draw her to you. Do not cross beyond the veil, do not leave the heart of my power and the range of my voice, do not leave me.

But you were implacable and impatient. _I go in your name, my goddess, and I will come again with news of our victory.  
_**  
** I set my love for you alight, a candle in the window to guide you home, and I waited for you to return to me.

You never did.

What did she do to you, my child? Where do your bones lie? If only you had not crossed that accursed, blood-blasphemed border, it would be her bones lying in the dust.

  


* * *

  


**Alevtina Polacheva**

****You could hear me but faintly and channel only seldom, but oh how your soul sang to mine.

You dealt death to our enemies, inventively, incessantly, a scythe in the shape of a girl. 

They took you from me in the end, but fret not: even my more gifted children failed.

  


* * *

  


**Lizavieta Zhilova**

****So small and so fierce and so deeply wronged. How could I not take you up, little one? I gave you the best of my gifts: a wolf to guard your steps, spells to muffle your footsteps and hide your shadow, further magics to find your enemy and overpower him. The bloodlust, though, that was yours.

You went for his eyes, and I rejoiced. Your wolf ate well that night.

Ever after, you liked the forests best. Together, we mapped the mysteries of the Kalyazi wilds. It suited you to be alone with your wolf—and it suited me too. 

Even for a goddess of winter, there is a season for all things. A time to regroup and plan. A time to scour the hidden places and search for a forgotten advantage. 

We found it, you and I.

  


* * *

  


**Sofka Greshneva**

****Betraying a goddess is never wise, my beautiful, foolish, faithless child.

  


* * *

  


**Evgenia Dyrbova**

****My poor Evgenia. Last but one. Harbinger and prophet and savior to gods. Loyal until the end. You prayed for your own salvation, and when I could not grant it, you spoke mine.

_With me falls the line of clerics. The gods will recede, their touch will lessen, clerics will become even rarer. If nothing changes, if the war continues, Kalyazin will be doomed._

__“All cry out for the doom of Kalyazin! All hail Svoyatova Evgenia Dyrbova, last of her line, doomsayer and seer stricken with visions of horrors to come!” Thus preaches the Church.

But we gods are not the Church, and our vision is longer. You, Evgenia, you brought a message, died with it on your lips, and the message is a message of hope, of chance, of a single loophole hidden in the cosmic tapestry.

So I will watch. I will wait. I will spin my spells like silk, my plots like magics. I will marshal my resources and my cunning and all my best skill.

In time, I will be the needle that slithers through and rips the stitching of the world asunder.

All I need is the right girl.

  


* * *

  


**Nadezhda Lapteva**  
  
_You_. _Yes, you._ You blaze bright bright bright into being, your call strong, your channel clear and empty, your hearing keen enough to detect even my brethren’s faintest whispers.

Your soul calls to mine, and I claim you. I am the goddess of magic, after all, and you have such power, child. Power enough, perhaps, to deliver us all. If we are canny, if we are patient, if we play the long game, if you trust us—trust me—enough to hazard all.

We will not fail this time. _I_ will not fail you, little one. I will teach you what I know—the bite of ice and the crush of snow, the fire of passion and the corrosion of hatred, the cruelty you will need to survive.

We will do such things together, my Nadya. We will remake the world in our image, and the heretics will tremble before our throne. My last, most precious, wished-for child. 

Lift your eyes unto me and heed my call. Together, we will be true and terrible. Together, we will save us all. You and I, dearest. The goddess of magic, and the girl she dreamt into being.

Come closer, my child. Listen. Learn.

  


**Author's Note:**

> Evgenia's prophecy is quoted/closely adapted from _Wicked Saints_.


End file.
